Life Insurance Rates: Does Alcohol Affect Your Premiums?

When you apply for life insurance, no matter if it's term or whole life, you will be asked two alcohol-related questions:

- How many glasses, and how often you drink? - Have you ever spent time in jail for a DUI charge?

How much you pay in insurance premiums will largely depend on your answers. With that said, you can say that life insurance underwriting is more of an art than exact science, and there's really no consensus, or consistency, among different life insurance companies on how to deal with the answer to either of the two questions, especially the first.

Yes, excessive drinking is associated with a shorter life expectancy, but there is no agreement on what is "excessive". Is it one drink a day, or two, or is it six? It is also one thing to consider that moderate drinking is known to increase life expectancy by a few years and decrease the risk of both heart attack and stroke.

Of course, having a DUI on your record - unless if it happened a long time ago - will most likely disqualify you from the best life insurance rating class. If the DUI charge was recent, and if there have been other DUI charges in the past, you will be required to pay even more.

Honesty Is Still the Best Policy

When filling out your life insurance application form, be accurate as possible about your alcohol consumption because your policy can easily be rescinded if any inaccuracies are discovered, which often happens after a claim is made.

Alcohol does not usually stay in the blood for more than 24 hours (hopefully you weren't drinking when the nurse came by to do the paramed exam). How much alcohol you drink can be identified by elevated liver enzyme levels, which can be tested for. An elevated liver enzyme level indicates more than occasional drinking. If your test shows you have elevated liver enzymes, several things could happen as a result:

- You will not be issued a policy. - Your application will be postponed until the cause is pinpointed. - You will be issued a policy but you will be required to pay extra premium.

If you end up with a higher-than-expected life insurance rate because of something alcohol-related, remember that your rates can go down over time if you are able to furnish evidence that you have addressed the problem.

If you drink only a glass of wine a day, it's unlikely to affect your life insurance rate with most insurers unless you have elevated levels of liver enzymes. If a more-than-moderate alcohol consumption your only issue, with a little work, it's possible to get an excellent life insurance rate.


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